Pangs of Love
by Crystal Dragonfly
Summary: Five years have passed since everything went down and Ashitaka remained in Iron Town until now. San ran away after finding him in an affair with Eboshi! Oh my! Now he goes in search of her to tell her how he feels, but where to start searching? Revising
1. Journey for San begins

This is my first fanfic so I don't know if I'll be wasting your time by reading this, but here we go.

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Five years have passed since the Great Forest Spirit died and Iron Town was reduced to nothing but rubble. But in those five years, everything has changed and the people of Iron Town now live in harmony with the forest, although the wolf clan still keeps a close watch on any human that walks through it. The Lady Eboshi decided to make Iron Town a fishing port, but kept the name because the women wouldn't want it any other way. And San…

"San…"

A body shifted its weight around beside me under a blanket and popped a head of tangled black hair out.

"Ashitaka?"

"It's nothing… go back to sleep."

"You still think about her, don't you?"

I looked down into the face of Eboshi with a forced smile on my face, "It's nothing."

"I'm sorry Ashitaka… but I couldn't… couldn't help myself. I didn't think she would see. I shouldn't have seduced you, Ashitaka, I'm sorry," she said lowering her head in shame.

"I shouldn't have fallen in… but…but why did she have to run away?"

Eboshi smiled and sat up and faced me with tearful eyes, "You love her… not me. Go, Ashitaka, find her."

"I don't know where to start though…"

"…Just go"

"Eboshi...?"

"Don't come back to Iron Town until you find her. You taught me five years ago to not only think about myself and about what I want, even if you didn't know it. That's why I love you," Eboshi flushed.

I leaned over and lightly kissed her warm cheek and rolled off of the mattress to my clothes that laid in a lump on the floor and looked down at the glimmer of the crystal dagger my sister gave to me before I left our village.

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The moon cast its light over the wooden houses where the voices of people and laughter could be heard coming through candle-lit windows. 

I walked over to the stable Yakul was kept in and lifted the bar, letting him out. He nuzzled my neck as if to assure everything would be alright as we walked to the gate. Both of the guards had a surprised expression on their faces, but shook off their confusion with a smile.

"Where are you heading to at this hour Ashitaka," asked one of the men.

"Moonlit stroll, but where's Lady Eboshi," said the other with a grin.

"I'm going to find San, I don't know when I'll be back."

"Princess Mononoke?! But... what about Lady Eboshi?"

"She knows. Please, let me pass."

They signaled men to open the gate from a small cabin near the gate and the gate was opened.

I grimaced as I ran San's last words to me in my head as I walked beside Yakul towards the forest, "I hate all humans Ashitaka, even you…"

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End of the first chapter. Woo hoo! I'm not really satisfied with it, but it'll work.

If you can be so kind as to leave reveiws (good or bad) I would appreciate it. Thankee.


	2. The Forest

I revised the second chapter! Yay! It's been awhile, but I may go tackle the first chapter to make it better then before Thank you to those that commented. YOU ROCK! And as I said before good or bad reviews are welcome, but not to those who don't see the gray inbetween things thank you. The world isn't only black and white.

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The woods were silent except for the sounds of Yakul and me walking through some underbrush that had overgrown the path through the forest. Tree spirits started to show up along the path, watching and wondering where we were heading and followed along the way to find out as we continued walking in the direction of San's stone cave. 

I knew in my heart and in my headthat she would not be there, but I still had to check. Even if she wasn't there, one of the wolves from the wolf clan might be and I was sure they had to have some clue as to where she went. Regardless of whether they would tell me or not.

"Why do you trespass through these woods, Ashitaka, you are no longer welcome here," said a cold voice muffled by barred teeth. The Tree Spirits started disappearing slowly from around us.

"I wish to know where San is, if you know where she is that is," I replied looking around the surrounding area to see where the voice was coming from, but failed to notice the faint outline of a wolf in the bushes to my right.

"You chase San away from the forest… away from us! And you want us to tell you where she went," snarled the wolf in anger.

"Please…"

"Don't ask for any favors, you're lucky I haven't bitten your head off yet," he sneered," You betrayed her like her human parents did. Pitiful."

My chest tightened and I let out a gasp as I grasped at it. _San's parents had abandoned her…I could never…did I? This pain... is this how San felt? I caused her pain, this is what I deserve. I don't even deserve to live or die..._Yakul nudged my arm uneasily and it hit me. "Yet." It pounded like a drum through my head and I tried to keep calm. I grabbed onto Yakul's reigns for the comfort of knowing he was still by my side. If he did attack I wouldn't be able to defend myself and strike back, even if it didn't kill him, San would never forgive then. Even if I never found her, I wouldn't be able to forgive my self because of how San would grieve over their deaths. How could she ever touch a hand stained by the blood of her family… I couldn't even if they try to kill me.

Bushes rustled and a paw stepped out onto the path, and then, the head and torso of Ichi appeared in a stream of moonlight that gleamed over the white coat turning every strand of hair silver and his clenched teeth glowed menacingly.

Yakul fidgeted uneasily clapping his hoofs on to the dirt path heavily and nudging my arm, but all I could do was stare at him and picture her in my mind- happy as could be upon the back of her brother protecting the forest. Maybe she was better off without me…

"I'll give you five seconds to run, only because it would make eating you all the more satisfying."

I didn't move to get onto Yakul. I just stood staring into the Ichi's eyes. I could see the hatred burning within his soul. I then remembered why I had come here in the first place; I thought after what happened five years ago, there would be no hate left in this part of the world, but I was wrong. Anger started to build up in my mind that no matter what I did, there would always be hate and then… there was a tingling feeling in my hand. The small scar that was left seemed a bit bigger than it was before.

But before I could examine it further, Ichi, suddenly made swift movements and snapped at my feet. I jumped out of the range of the jaw's in the knick of time.

"I told you to run!" He snapped again at my feet and instead of just jumping out of the way, I got onto Yakul's back and he immediately began to run at a rate I had never seen him run before.

I didn't look behind us, but I didn't have to to know we were being chased. I ordered Yakul to go left into the trees where we may have a better chance of escaping or, at least, more time to live. He didn't follow us into the trees though, instead he ran farther ahead of us to cut us off when the trees became meager. Again, I instructed Yakul to go left towards the cliff near the river I had first arrived here at.

We continued for a few minutes without seeing a thing besides a few squirrels. I thought a saw a glimmer of silver in the trees, but it was gone in the next moment when I turned my head to look. I felt my neck being yanked backwards and then heard a snap, looking back I saw the crystal dagger swinging back and forth like a pendulum on a branch and fall to the ground after loosening itself. I jumped off of Yakul's back and ran quickly dodging trees to retrieve it while hoof steps seemed to recede into the distance.

I kneeled down and looked on the ground, feeling around to find the dagger in the darkness of thick trees. I cut my finger against something sharp and grabbed it revealing it in a sparse string of light from the moon that it was the dagger and held it in my hand ready to catch up to my Red Elk, but then _he_ caught my attention; standing approximately ten feet away from where I stood.

Foam slavered from Ni's mouth as he growled, glaring at me. I stood holding the dagger tightly in my hand, trying to hold myself back from attacking while blood cascaded slowly onto the ground in droplets from the blade digging into me.

He got ready to attack, I stood ready to face my end and closed my eyes as I heard the patter of paws hit the ground and then… the beating of hooves and a loud smacking noise. To my surprise, I opened my eyes to see Yakul pinning Ni to the tree, but pinning him didn't seem to be needed because the wolf wasn't moving even though he was still breathing. I jumped onto his back again and he quickly turned around and started running again.

I felt my body relax as we galloped on thinking that we were now safe from Ni and could make it out of the forest without fearing death along the way.

Just as I let out a sigh of relief, I was thrown into a tree, banging my head on a rock hard trunk. Momentarily, I came back to my senses and locked my eyes onto Yakul trying to get up. Something seemed to be holding him down but everything was a blur, I just caught a glimpse of fangs making their way down to his throat. In a matter of seconds, I was rushing towards the silver body holding him down.

I yelled, "Yakul," as I slashed side of the face of a wolf with the crystal dagger that had dug into my palm.

Ichi snarled from the pain and barred his teeth at me. An ear-peircing howl cut through, Ichi looked up and then his attention went back onto me. Another howl echoes through the forest. Ichi fidgeted in his battle stance, internally fighting with himself and suddenly sprinted towards. _This is the end Yakul. _I grabbed tightly onto his reigns and covered him with my body. The patter of paws stopped and started again, I looked up bewildered to see a hide of dimmed white fur running in the other direction.

"Don't try your luck again in this forest."

I found nothing on Yakul but muddy paw prints of Ichi.. I ran beside him until we got out of the forest still cautious of upcoming danger until we reached the cliff . I looked into the west where the sun was rising and sighed the name San and asked where she had gone to. The soft wind picked up and I thought I could hear Moro's voice say, "The one place you are forbidden to return to, is where she is." I looked to the east with a somber expression on my face.

"We're heading home Yakul."

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Hope you enjoyed thechapter! I know it's probably as short as the first version, you have my apology, but I can't think of anything more then that xX Third Chapter coming some time within the next millenium, sorry I don't update much. I'll try to though. 


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